At one of those hotels I met up with a homesick American. He was
marooned there in the rain, waiting for the skies to clear, so he
could do some mountain climbing; and he was beginning to get moldy
from the prevalent damp. By now the study of bathing habits had
become an obsession with me; I asked him whether he had encountered
any bathtubs about the place. He said a bathtub in those altitudes
was as rare as a chamois, and the chamois was entirely extinct;
so I might make my own calculations. But he said he could show
me something that was even a greater curiosity than a bathtub, and
he led me to where a moonfaced barometer hung alongside the front
entrance of the hotel.
He said he had been there a week now and had about lost hope; but
every time he threatened to move on, the proprietor would take him
out there and prove that they were bound to have clearing weather
within a few hours, because the barometer registered fair. At
that moment streams of chilly rain-water were coursing down across
the dial of the barometer, but it registered fair even then. He
said - the American did - that it was the most stationary barometer
he had ever seen, and the most reliable - not vacillating and given
to moods, like most barometers, but fixed and unchangeable in its
habits.
I matched it, though, with a thermometer I saw in the early spring
of 1913 at a coast resort in southern California. An Eastern
tourist would venture out on the windswept and drippy veranda, of
a morning after breakfast. He would think he was cold. He would
have many of the outward indications of being cold. His teeth
would be chattering like a Morse sounder, and inside his white-duck
pants his knees would be knocking together with a low, muffled
sound. He would be so prickled with gooseflesh that he felt like
Saint Sebastian; but he would take a look at the thermometer
- sixty-one in the shade! And such was the power of mercury and
mind combined over matter that he would immediately chirk up and
feel warm.
Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, was one of those
fickle-minded, variable thermometers, showing a temperature that
ranged from fifty-five on downward to forty; but the hotel thermometer
stood firm at sixty-one, no matter what happened. In a season of
trying climatic conditions it was a great comfort - a boon really
- not only to its owner but to his guests. Speaking personally,
however, I have no need to consult the barometer's face to see
what the weather is going to do, or the thermometer's tube to see
what it has done. No person needs to do so who is favored naturally
as I am. I have one of the most dependable soft corns in the
business.
Rome is full of baths - vast ruined ones erected by various emperors
and still bearing their names - such as Caracalla's Baths and Titus'
Baths, and so on. Evidently the ancient Romans were very fond of
taking baths.
Other striking dissimilarities between the ancient Romans and the
modern Romans are perceptible at a glance.
Chapter V
When the Seven A.M. Tut-tut leaves for Anywhere
Being desirous of tendering sundry hints and observations to such
of my fellow countrymen as may contemplate trips abroad I shall,
with their kindly permission, devote this chapter to setting forth
briefly the following principles, which apply generally to railroad
travel in the Old World.
First - On the Continent all trains leave at or about seven A.M.
and reach their destination at or about eleven P.M. You may be
going a long distance or a short one - it makes no difference; you
leave at seven and you arrive at eleven. The few exceptions to
this rule are of no consequence and do not count.
Second - A trunk is the most costly luxury known to European travel.
If I could sell my small, shrinking and flat-chested steamer trunk
- original value in New York eighteen dollars and seventy-five
cents - for what it cost me over on the other side in registration
fees, excess charges, mental wear and tear, freightage, forwarding
and warehousing bills, tips, bribes, indulgences, and acts of
barratry and piracy, I should be able to laugh in the income tax's
face. In this connection I would suggest to the tourist who is
traveling with a trunk that he begin his land itinerary in Southern
Italy and work northward; thereby, through the gradual shrinkage
in weight, he will save much money on his trunk, owing to the
pleasing custom among the Italian trainhands of prying it open and
making a judicious selection from its contents for personal use
and for gifts to friends and relatives.
Third - For the sake of the experience, travel second class once;
after that travel first class - and try to forget the experience.
With the exception of two or three special-fare, so-called de-luxe
trains, first class over there is about what the service was on an
accommodation, mixed-freight-and-passenger train in Arkansas
immediately following the close of the Civil War.
Fourth - When buying a ticket for anywhere you will receive a cunning
little booklet full of detachable leaves, the whole constituting
a volume about the size and thickness of one of those portfolios
of views that came into popularity with us at the time of the
Philadelphia Centennial. Surrender a sheet out of your book on
demand of the uniformed official who will come through the train
at from five to seven minute intervals. However, he will collect
only a sheet every other trip; on the alternate trips he will
merely examine your ticket with the air of never having seen it
before, and will fold it over, and perforate it with his punching
machine and return it to you.
